Hi! I’m Tiffany.

I am a former tech start-up founder that is looking to transition into a role where I can combine my business/strategy skills with the creativity and empathy that comes natural to me. I am passionate about solving big problems and working closely with the people being served by a product or service.

I have facilitated workshops and training on business model canvas design, evaluated start-ups for viability, and built a tech company - all with a hyper focus on user experience and motivations. Here, you’ll learn more about my work.

Enjoy (and let me know what you think @ tiffany.e.smith23@gmail.com).

Who I Am

I thrive in ambiguous settings where there’s a little bit of information and a lot on the line.

My Resume

If I had to describe my resume to someone I would say: it’s a journey of trying to get closer and closer to the people part of business. I know that I ultimately want to merge my two identities that revolve around business (my recent love) and design (my first love).

Getting an MBA was always in my plan (I wrote one when I was 19) and I knew I wanted to eventually train my brain to understand how businesses succeed and fail and how people adopt services and use their own hacks to improve them. Business school opened the door to the opportunity for me to learn about design thinking, human-centered design, and starting an enterprise.

Tiltas

WHAT IT IS:

Tiltas (formerly OrangePrint) is a company that started from the question: how can you turn waste into a community resource? The goal was to connect individuals with criminal backgrounds to opportunities for employment and resources.

WHAT I DID:

I went into halfway houses/prisons to conduct interviews (example here).

I spoke to probation and parole officers.

I spoke to service providers.

I subsequently went on to launch, Tiltas, a for-profit tech social enterprise that initially focused on matching individuals with criminal backgrounds with jobs in skilled labor, my forte. You could think of it as a LinkedIn for the formerly incarcerated.

INSIGHTS: After about a year of interviewing 150+ stakeholders, design thinking sessions, customer mapping and piloting the staffing model, and a lot of small failures I realized that the real problem was actually communication between service providers (non-profits) and the individuals who needed their services.

SOLUTION 1: I launched a Google voice pilot hotline to connect those with criminal backgrounds with resources. That then laid the foundation for what Tiltas became: an online communications platform (Twilio-integrated) that provides non-profit service providers with an easy to use communications platform to keep track of their clients.

SOLUTION 2: I built a platform that included similar functionality to a texting service but was uniquely fit to slot in between current interface software (such as State-issued case management platforms or Salesforece) that the case managers were using to communicate with their clients.

TILTAS AS A CLIENT: While running Tiltas, I was apart of a lot of different programs, but the one that stood out in particular was a Designing for Social Impact session co-ran by AIGA Chicago and Salesforce where Tiltas was the client. We (myself, facilitators and 20+ participants), spent four weeks hashing through Tiltas, interviewing users, and really getting behind the user's motivation.

Prototype screens developed after interviews/feedback with users and I evaluated these for efficacy in the field.

Articulating the struggle of individuals returning home in digital format

Ideas drawn up when Tiltas was a client to AIGA/Salesforce. I participated in the brainstorming sessions/ideation sessions with 20+ others.

More sketches of the process development behind Tiltas

Business Model Canvas Training

In May 2018, I traveled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Johannesburg, South Africa to teach Business Model Canvas to 50+ entrepreneurs.

In Tanzania, I worked with the Chapter Director of Startup Grind to host a group of women who had small businesses ranging from real estate acquisition to food service. The ultimate goal was to translate the business model canvas into a tool that they could use in their local context.

In South Africa, I worked with the lead of SAP Next-Gen Africa, to train a group of entrepreneurs who had small businesses ranging from perfume manufacturing to telecom providers. We also went into a local township and did an 8-hour crash course for local entrepreneurs.

The training consisted of me evaluating their business models, making them complete customer empathy maps/journeys, poking holes in their models, and subsequently helping the improve their offering. We remain in contact via a WhatsApp group for each cohort.

This experience really allowed me to hone in on my facilitation skills and gave me a ton of exposure to various different types of problems that each of these brave entrepreneurs were solving in their community.

To listen to feedback from one of the entrepreneurs that participated, click here.

Core Staffing

In December 2018, I started helping a friend on a part-time basis who is running a worker-owned staffing cooperative in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area. He started the cooperative upon his return home from incarceration when he realized that the only work he could get was either below his experience level (college-educated) or was completely predatory in nature.

In 2016, Core Staffing was born, a brilliant business model that combines a worker cooperative with a staffing firm for individuals with criminal records. Since inception, Core has placed 22 members with a 0% recidivism (rate at which people return back to prison/rail) rate. Core is proving that people with criminal backgrounds are more than just their record. They have to be given a true second chance in order to be successful. Core sits under a holding company called Staffing.Coop that seeks to overhaul the staffing industry through worker owned cooperatives.

I am helping Core Staffing (and the holding company) figure out what growth looks like and scaling their two-sided marketplace.

What is Core Staffing/Staffing Coop?

Photography

I am the proud owner of a Sony A6000. I bought her when I had to take headshots for the Tiltas team. Since then, we have become good friends. She has taught me a lot and has proven very useful in recent months. Here are some of the adventures her and I have captured.